Any Ivy League Graduates?

[jungleline]

I went to Dartmouth and had a good experience there. But I think you need to go to the school that's the best fit for you, Ivy League or not.

 

[SwedishFish]

I went to a NESCAC college, which is sort of prestigious, at least in the Northeast. I loved my time there but sometimes I think I might have been better off in an honors program at a public university. Seeing the kids with $3000/month allowances who didn't even have to make an effort as daddy already had everything set up for them got old pretty fast, especially as I had to work extra hours just to afford getting through the place. Yes, I'm a little bitter, but at least I learned how to deal with these "elite" people, which should be useful in the future.

 

[Joel_Cairo]

Originally Posted by cheessus

I went to UVA over Penn, Brown, and Dartmouth. Best life decision so far.

+1. I got into Harvard but still chose otherwise. Now that I work there, I'm really really glad I did so.

 

[dirk diggler]

Originally Posted by rach2jlc

I don't think anybody is saying that the classes in and of themselves and in isolation will teach vastly different amounts of stuff.

BUT, the difference comes in the "little details" outside of class, in the resources, communities of learning with other students, opportunities, networking possibilities, opportunities for research, internships/mentorships, etc. Further, while at XX State School, you might take economic theories based on the research of Mr. ABC. At the ivy, you just might have the class taught by Mr. ABC.

It's NOT just "name," no matter how you want to slice it, either for undergrad or for grad. State Schools are fine, of course, but it still is ridiculous for you to keep pushing this point of "They're all the same" UNLESS you've attended all of them.

I had 2 Nobel Prize winners as professors. It is something different to have a prof come back to class after being gone a week and say "the Central Bank of Italy needed me to work out some issues for them" and you read about those things in the paper a few weeks later. Yeah, I could have studied econ elsewhere, but when you have access to the the world, it pays for the better school.

 

[dirk diggler]

Originally Posted by crazyquik

At a private school with a large recruiting reach (and there are lots of them) you will meet a lot more people with a much wider background. The person sitting next to you might have grown up in that same town, or may be more cosmopolitan than Barack Obama.


Harold Ford, Jr. was a classmate for undergrad and law school. Yes, it is something to go to a large public event, and get a shout out from him in front of your boss and the general counsel.

 

[rach2jlc]

Originally Posted by dirk diggler

I had 2 Nobel Prize winners as professors. It is something different to have a prof come back to class after being gone a week and say "the Central Bank of Italy needed me to work out some issues for them" and you read about those things in the paper a few weeks later. Yeah, I could have studied econ elsewhere, but when you have access to the the world, it pays for the better school.
Yep, had a few of those myself. My favorite was the guy who told us "no class nextweek, I'm being given a chair at the College de France!" He was almost giddy... Anyway, I've said my piece and given all the advice I know about this stuff. Final word: Wherever you go, work your ass off and don't ever sit still. This is the time of your life to do ALL the exploration, free reading/learning/studying you can. When you get a career or go on to graduate/doctoral programs, the days of "playing around" with majors, classes, ideas, etc. are pretty much done. Life will intervene for you and make you narrow your focus as you become a practitioner. Enjoy this time, wherever it may be spent (Harvard, Yale, XX State School, or XX Community College). Be proud of your work and your accomplishments and the rest will take care of itself.

 

[aerether]

Turned down Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, and UPenn (among others) for MIT.

Let's see how this turns out.

(check back in half a decade ok?)

 

[redgrail]

Originally Posted by andyliu52

its further removed from reality to pretend that if you go to harvard you are going to learn something in intermediate macroecon that you wouldntve learned if you took intermediate macro at OSU or UT or <insert state school here> people tend to underestimate the importance of branding, but think about it from an insurance/asymmetric information point of view: employers spend a lot of money to recruit and train employees, but the thing is you cant really tell how good an employee will be just from a resume and interview, but when you go to harvard you know that they have already been vetted by admissions, and probably needed to work pretty hard to get a degree on the other hand, if you go to a big state school, your just in a big blob and you may be super smart and a great employee, but the employer doesnt know... but if you were harvard material and went to a state school, presumably your gpa would let them know basically the education is going to be the same, but the branding will be different, imagine those chinese factories that make tons of brand name merchandise and probably quite a bit of non brand name merchandise... yet the brand name merchandise can command a higher price, despite coming from the same place
You're looking at this from a very strange perspective, one that I'm not sure I fully comprehend. So let's unpack it. According to you, it's HYPS or MIT/Caltech for science. These are the only brands strong enough to warrant turning down a state school for, because of tuition, etc etc. I say, brands mean exactly jack. They're good for impressing people at dinner parties, and not much else. That is, unless you plan on going into some fields that should be considered aberrations (I-banking stands out as an example). The strength of the program that you're interested in, environment, student-teacher ratio, and a whole load of other more fuzzy factors are much more important to the quality of education than the two you present (money vs. value of brand). It is completely reasonable, for example, to turn down Harvard for MIT Comp Sci. Same with turning down Princeton for Illinois engineering. Same with turning down Stanford for NYU philosophy. It is completely reasonable to turn down HYPS for a Williams lib arts BA. Even if you're from Texas and could get a full ride at UT. Or similarly for Berkeley. I could go on and on, but I think I've made my point by now.

 

[keykoo]

Going to a good school helps a lot with getting your foot in the door. I have a couple friends who probably performed better than me at top state schools (UT, OSU, UVA) and they had much more difficulty of lining up entry level job interviews than me after graduation from top tier technology firms (M$, Google, etc etc).

 

[lmaligaya]

Originally Posted by aerether

Turned down Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, and UPenn (among others) for MIT. Let's see how this turns out. (check back in half a decade ok?)
Hey, I'm a senior in Course 2 here at MIT. Are you there for undergrad or Phd? I would agree with most of the sentiments in this thread about access to resources, the diverse/intellectual people that you will meet. On top of that, the student have accomplishments that are incredible and thus this theme is continued while studying at the school. The academic environment also attracts more funding, people with power, and usually there are students ambitious enough to tackle something new and important. The biggest factor at at schools with less resources are bureaucracy, mainly administration or professors shooting down new/risky ideas instead of continuously pushing the envelope for research and initiatives. For me, I got into the engineering schools at CMU, Illinois, Northwestern, Purdue and MIT. I would have went to MIT regardless, but to illustrate the point of available resources, it was cheaper for me to attend MIT on need based aid, than to attend the other schools for merit based aid. MIT does not do merit based aid because obviously, it would be hard to choose who shines overall in the class. It is not just the school or the name that makes a difference. The area, it's history, intellectual atmosphere, and the people it attracts are also huge factors that must be observed to be appreciated. I would try to explain, but I think Paul Graham does a better job with it in his article, "Cities and Ambition", linked below. This is why I am applying to Stanford and Berkeley Graduate school, even though I am already at the arguably "best" engineering school in the world. http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html

 

[ghulkhan]

I would rather go to school in NYC than any ivy league school. (Columbia is almost in connecticut so it does not count as being in NYC. )

 

[Bring The Noise]

Many Ontario (Queens, Western, York) area schools offer great mba programs for more "competitive" prices than ivy league schools
but like someone said...its what you do with ur degree

 

[Tarmac]

There are different levels in Ivy. Everyone knows penn and dartmouth are a notch below.

top tier is top tier. MIT, princeton, harvard, yale, Stanford, Caltech.

there are many different things happening when you have the top students gather at a top college. Supposedly they are learning from better profs. But even if they sat around with no classes, they meet each other and plan **** for the future. just one example.

 

[Nantucket Red]

Originally Posted by FormalFashion08

I'm an aspiring Ivy League student (Columbia),and I was wondering if there are any members on here that can share their experiences with their education. How did the degree treat you afterwards? A gift that keeps on giving, or in your case, a gift that keeps on paying



*weak grammar, but I am winding down.

I'm a Columbia alum. Going to school in NYC was an amazing experience and I'm very proud of the accomplishment. In my field (Japanese lit.), Columbia gave me opportunities that wouldn't have been available elsewhere, such as studying with Donald Keene.

Having done well in an Ivy League school is a source of personal satisfaction more than anything else. But it hasn't made my **** smell any more like attar of roses than it ever did.

The real world is a great leveller, and outside of alumni events, being an Ivy League grad may not account for much. What you put into your education and subsequent career matters much more.

 

[Nantucket Red]

Originally Posted by ghulkhan

I would rather go to school in NYC than any ivy league school. (Columbia is almost in connecticut so it does not count as being in NYC. )

Well, it's a short enough cab ride to the Metro North 125th station to make a weekend trip home to Connecticut not too much trouble.